ABSTRACT
Most attempts to describe the general development of modern thought tend to pay exclusive attention to the growth of rationalism. The result is a picture quite incompatible with historical facts and the world as we know it.
Karl Mannheim THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY DEFINES the word ‘romantic’ as meaning ‘marked by or suggestive of or given to romance; imaginative, remote from experience, visionary, and (in relation to literary or artistic method) preferring grandeur or passion or irregular beauty to finish and proportion’. None of these connotations would appear to have much to do with those activities which are generally covered by the heading ‘consumption’. The selection, purchase and use of goods and services are all forms of everyday action which, on the contrary, we commonly tend to view as rather dull and prosaic matters, except perhaps on those rare occasions when we purchase a major item like a house or a car. It would appear, therefore, that consumption, being a form of economic conduct, should be placed at the opposite pole of life from all that we generally regard as ‘romantic’. The reasonableness of this contrast is deceptive, however; something which becomes apparent once we recognize that there is one significant modern phenomenon which does indeed directly link the two.